Posted on 08/10/2011 8:11:57 AM PDT by janereinheimer
How would you define "Christian?"
I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. It goes back a couple of weeks when someone made a comment that someone who's been in the news a lot lately was not a "Christian."
I take an existential view of that because I believe that anyone who has had a Christian baptism is a Christian.
Where I depart company from the pious and sanctimonious definitions of others is when their definition of Christian is really a definition of being "Christ-like."
Oh, for sure, I would hope that Christians everywhere would behave in a Christ-like manner. But there are a lot of people who have had a Christian baptism who are far from behaving like Christ did. They are corrupt sinners in need of salvation. They may or may not ever repent of their rotten, sinful lives until they are within minutes of drawing their last breath. But even at that last breath, if they truly repent and ask God for forgiveness, then I believe that our loving, forgiving God will open the gates of heaven and receive that sinner. Just as surely as he will receive the person who has tried hard to lead a Christ-like life.
For instance, C. S. Lewis wasn't exactly known for his faith in God when he got started in his writing career. In fact, he set out in his early writings to prove God didn't exist at all.
Then, voila, an experience touched him. I've not read all that's to be read about Lewis or from Lewis, but I have a deep suspicion that the Holy Spirit got ahold of him because he became one of the most profound Christian writers ever to draw breath.
And then there was that other guy of New Testament fame -remember Saul? He ran around with execution warrants in his pocket so that he could mow down any Christians he happened to come across while he was going thither and yon throughout the lands of what we call the Holy Land. Remember Damascus? Jesus went to Syria to find Saul. Struck him down blind. Then someone drug Saul off to stay at his house while Saul recuperated from that insane notion that all Christians ought to be killed.
Blindness. That's how Jesus got Saul's attention. Well, Jesus healed his blindness. Not only did Saul get his sight back but he got a new, improved name too. From then on, he was called Paul. And fortunately for Christians everywhere, we have Paul. The New Testament would be a pretty slim volume without all the writings of Paul.
He was one grand letter writer, let me tell you!
But back to this sanctimonious person who thinks it's okay to go around making judgments about whether a person is a Christian or not.
She wouldn't agree that someone I went to jail to counsel for the best part of a year and a half was a Christian.* And then one day, out of that miracle place in the universe that we call nowhere, this murderer told me he wanted to take communion.
I told him he'd have to talk with a pastor about repentance if he wanted to do that.
He said he was ready. He wanted communion before he went to trial.
Do you know that I called about ten pastors before I found one who agreed to go to the jail and talk to this person? And yes, the pastor said he'd bring communion just in case the client confessed the sins of double murder.
Where would sinners be if we were not the road back to the Lord when they took the wrong turn?
Isn't sanctimony and piety very un-Christ-like behavior in themselves?
Where would the young teenage girl be if I had refused to see her because she was dabbling in Satanism?*
Or how about the wife who had committed adultery and was afraid to confess her sin to her pastor.* Even though her husband had forgiven her, she was most hopeful that God had too.
How can any one of us ever say that just because someone got off on the wrong path that they weren't Christians anymore?
Rather, it's our job as Christians to pray for sinners that they may somehow find the way back to a loving and forgiving Lord.
We are never, ever supposed to crawl back into our sanctimonious little turtle of a shell and declare a sinner a non-Christian. God does not like that.
*used with permission
P.S. It's discouraging that a very small percentage of pastors, priests and other spiritual leaders shed such a dim shadow across the field of spiritual shepherds who are very compassionate and loving and Christ-like. I thank God that these pastors outnumber those who focus on negativity and unforgiveness with sinners who seek their counsel; with sinners who need most of all to know that their sins are forgiven. There are a great many pastors who do not withhold the Means of Grace to repentant sinners.
I’m not sure I agree with you that defining a term is casting a judgment.
Jane R.
I’m not sure I agree with you that defining a term is casting a judgment.
Jane R.
Mark 16:16 “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Good point.
Are they being judgmental or simply defining a term?
I would certainly question where in any definition a so called “death-bed” repentance is found.
So as I suggested, the Scriptures (as several posters have informed us) define Christian so that we don't have to judge what is inside the sinner.
Those who have been "called out" since Deuteronomy 4:10 I like you have always found that the clearest
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
and OBTW from the lips of Yah'shua.Deu 4:10 "Remember the day you stood before YHvH
Ekklesia == Assemble the people to me == church
your God at Horeb, when YHvH said to me, 'Assemble the
people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn
to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may
teach their children.'
out of joy
Joy comes after Baptism, was a result of those who were
baptized, not what led them to be baptized
obedience to the Lord
true as everything else we do
as a public proclamation of that faith to the world -
not sure about this, what scripture explains this?
Kinda contradicts your point about being a checklist?
That certainly opens up the playing field. Any definition of the faith that omits, uh, faith is sorely lacking. Per the scripture (Romans 10:9) there is a requirement for actual faith: "For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. " But per the posited definition, an atheist can be a Christian.
I wonder if the author of this piece really believes in sin? They certainly don't seem to think that it separates a soul from God. The Church has a mission to rescue people, not make excuses for them. To refuse to confront sin is to surrender the sinner to Judgement and eternal fire. We do no one any favors by coddling them.
“The world has never followed the simple ethics of Jesus, yet it is loud in its proclamation that it is Christian.” — Ernest Holmes
Baptism is good but that alone will not save you.
The purpose of this screed is to accuse ministers and counselors who take sin seriously and confront it in the lives of their charges of being Sanctimonious, and of being Hypocrites, and of being Just Damn Mean.
It's a lot like the lily-livered preachers and teachers that tell the story of Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery, but somehow manage to leave off the part at the end where Jesus sternly tells the adultress "go and sin no more." I guess that sharp warning makes Jesus seem sanctimonious, mean and probabaly misogynistic to boot.
Wonderful post. Thank you.
Grace to you, my FRiend.
In deed! Repentance involves a change of actions as well as regrets for wrong doing.
May you and yours be richly blessed by YHvH.shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
Sorry FRiend, it does indeed say exactly that: James 5:16 - Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
It always bears remembering that just because the Catholics teach it doesn't mean that it isn't so. As a Protestant, I don't believe that oracular confession is an absolute requirement for forgiveness of sins (in keeping with 1 John 1:9), but it is a wonderful way for believers to grow together in the Lord. A Catholic would call it a Means of Grace, and I wouldn't argue.
James 5:16
Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much
But your right, it doesn’t have to be a Pastor, but sometime it helps to confess our sins to each other so others can pray for us and help us overcome that sin.
Repentance is such a bloodless, weak word in English. My Greek has long flown, but the word rendered as "Repentance" in the New Testament means roughly "to agree". If we say that we repent of a sin, we say that we agree with God about it, i.e. we hate it and renounce it. If we then return to the sin, what does that say about our agreement? Could it be that we were just admitting that we sinned, with no real agreement that our deeds were wrong or intention of turning away from them? Could we, in fact, feel justified in our sin? This is not to say that God will not forgive us again and again if confess the same sins. But when we see intractable sin habits in our own lives, or in the lives of others, we have every reason to be concerned about the sincerity of repentance.
His examples don’t support his thesis (which as far as I can tell you shouldn’t try to judge if someone is a christian ever).
Until his conversion Saul was NOT a Christian. Before he saw the light Lewis was NOT a Christian. How is it sanctimony to recognize that?
You are a Christian if you confess that you believe in the Trinity, that you are born a sinner and can only be saved through the sacred blood of Jesus.
He seems to take the view that baptism is magic. I believe that every human ever born has the opportunity to be saved.
His examples don’t support his thesis (which as far as I can tell you shouldn’t try to judge if someone is a christian ever).
Until his conversion Saul was NOT a Christian. Before he saw the light Lewis was NOT a Christian. How is it sanctimony to recognize that?
You are a Christian if you confess that you believe in the Trinity, that you are born a sinner and can only be saved through the sacred blood of Jesus.
He seems to take the view that baptism is magic. I believe that every human ever born has the opportunity to be saved.
Thank you FRiend for this post. That scripture dovetails nicely with the NT “forsake not the assembling of yourselves”.
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